I’ve been intending for a while now to share my experiences with the first-generation Google Pixel Watch. And, with the second-generation successor already eight months old as I write these words in mid-June 2024, along with rumors of the third-generation offering already beginning to circulate, I figured it was now or never to actualize that aspiration! The two generations are fairly similar; I’ll point out relevant differences in the paragraphs that follow.
The first-gen Pixel Watch (black frame and black rubberized “active” band version shown above; other color combinations also offered, along with accessory bands made from other materials) was unveiled at the 2022 Google I/O conference and entered production that same October. Its development was predated by several key business moves by the company. In January 2019, smartwatch manufacturer (and Google partner) Fossil sold some of its IP to Google as well as transferring part of its R&D team to the acquiring company, all for $40 million. And that same November, Google announced that it planned to spend $2.1 billion to purchase Fitbit, an acquisition that finally closed in January 2021 after a lengthy U.S. Justice Department evaluation of potential antitrust concerns.
Next up, some personal history. As regular readers may remember, I’ve long been an admittedly oft-frustrated user of smartwatches from Google’s various partners (Huawei, LG and Motorola, to be precise), all based on a common Wear OS or precursor-branding Android Wear software foundation. I eventually bailed on them, instead relying on my long-running, Android smartphone-compatible (in contrast to Apple Watches, for example) Garmin and Withings smartwatches. But in doing so I’d foregone any hands-on testing of the newer Wear OS 3 (currently at v4, with v5 enroute) which blended in design elements of the legacy Tizen O/S from Google’s new smartwatch partner, Samsung, along with any personal evaluations of newer smartwatch SoCs from Qualcomm and Samsung.
The Wear OS drought ended when, last September, I saw that not only had Google dropped the price tag of the LTE-enhanced version of the Pixel Watch by $60, to $339.99, it was also tossing in two years of free Google Fi-supplied cellular data service:
After using cellular data for ~9 months now, it’s nice to have but not essential, at least for me. Were I regularly wearing the watch while exercising away from my smartphone, for example, I might feel differently. But given that my Pixel 7s are regularly in close proximity, direct Internet connectivity from the smartwatch isn’t a necessity, plus it incrementally impacts battery life whenever the watch is untethered from the phone and not on a known Wi-Fi network.
About that battery life…when I started using the smartwatch, I struggled to squeeze a full day of between-charges wear out of it. Now, thanks to both Google-supplied software updates and my fine-tuning of the power management settings, I can often go for 30 hours or more. And if I were to disable the twist-wrist-to-turn-on-backlight, relying solely on manual watch face taps to wake up the display, I’d likely be able to stretch the battery life even further.
That said, my Garmin watch only loses ~10% of its battery capacity per day; it’ll run for well beyond a week between charges as long as I’m not activating its GPS subsystem (of course).
And my Withings watch? I intentionally took it instead of the Pixel Watch with me to California last month so that I didn’t need to bother packing a charger; its svelte body is also easier than the alternative long-lasting Garmin to tuck underneath a buttoned-down dress shirt sleeve. Upon my return to Colorado five days later, its stored battery charge still reported 100% full.
By the way, you might have noticed something about the Pixel Watch in the more recent (earlier today, in fact) two on-wrist pictures I took of it. I switched from the default “active” band, which quickly started exhibiting visible usage evidence from being removed from and then reattached to my wrist 1x per day (for recharging), to a stretchable Spigen Lite Fit band. Also, although one of the standard watch faces (the cool-looking, IMHO, Concentric) is shown, I sometimes instead toggle to the third-party Pixel Minimal one I purchased, which (in spite of its seemingly contrary name) lets me squeeze even more info into the display: daily step count, heart rate, date, weather, and battery charge. For obvious reasons I’ve already noted, that last one’s important.
A bit more on the battery. The first-generation Pixel Watch leverages wireless charging, akin to that used by Apple’s various Watch models and generations:
This approach is admittedly convenient. But it’s also slow; it takes ~2 hours to fully charge the watch from a drained state, a not-insignificant percentage of the subsequent wear-before-charge-again time. To wit, the Pixel Watch 2 moved to a more traditional, Fitbit-like multi-pin-based connector, notably (from reviews I’ve seen) boosting charging speed in the process.
And the upcoming Pixel Watch 3, per leaked images, will not only be thicker but also come in a larger-face variant. One benefit of the form factor increase is room inside for a larger, higher capacity battery. Plus, as my wife, now with a Christmas-present Apple Watch Ultra replacement for her soon-obsoleted Series 4 (a pending demise I’d forecasted back when I bought the successor for her) says, “go big or go home” (translation: she likes her watches “chunky”).
Another notably difference between the two Pixel Watch generations is that whereas my first-gen model runs on a Samsung Exynos 9110 dual-core processor, the Pixel Watch 2 switches to a quad-core Qualcomm SW5100 SoC. That said, the performance of mine is perfectly acceptable (that said, I haven’t comparatively tried its successor yet!). Other enhancements with the second-generation model:
- A switch from a stainless steel to lighter aluminum body
- An enhanced-function cardiac sensor suite, and
- New skin temperature and electrodermal activity (EDA) stress sensors
similarly don’t provide sufficient upgrade motivation, at least for me.
In closing, two other oddities of note. For some unknown reason, the Pixel Watch isn’t compatible with the Wear O/S app that comes with Android. Instead, as part of the initial pairing process:
a dedicated Watch app gets installed.
Also, I can’t for the life of me get native Google Wallet support working with the watch:
Again, at worst a minor nuisance, since I usually also have a phone with me. Still…
What are your thoughts on Google’s branded Wear OS smartwatches, both in comparison to alternatives from other Wear OS licensees and those based on other smartwatch operating systems (including Fitbit’s)? Sound off in the comments!
—Brian Dipert is the Editor-in-Chief of the Edge AI and Vision Alliance, and a Senior Analyst at BDTI and Editor-in-Chief of InsideDSP, the company’s online newsletter.
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